Messages - giant_macaskill

On one hand you are claiming that this decision to remove the Canadian site was made in great part for the MAJORITY of AHA members in the US. Fine. Yet you also proudly claim to be listening to a few mystery men in Vancouver in making this decision, who are clearly a MINORITY of members. So you selectively listen to groups of members who suit your needs to kill the ALES competition as an AHA site. Hypocrisy noted.

The only valid and continuous argument here is the lack of AHA members in Canada. It would be better off to admit this, and start addressing that problem, instead of kicking this can further down the road.

I see a lot of circular arguments. ALES is always the second choice in-case the US is unable to handle the load. Under constraints, your given points re-enforce what I said previous. This is based on AHA membership density. And that isn't going to change unless paid dues give some benefit to Canadian members.

The thought that there was a significant portion of brewers who wanted to enter US competitions and bypass ALES is just not a good argument, regardless of some people living at the border saying that it is.

The 2/3 2nd round participation likely isn't going to change greatly, so you need to fish or cut bait with us on that one.

Everything says to me that you'll be interested in using us again when it's convenient for you, or when you start seeing more dues coming in. I understand the dues argument. At any rate, it's a done deal, and I don't see this coming back, nor should it not without a long term commitment from both sides on certain issues. ALES has to do some work on this end as well.

organize 10-20 border adjacent canadian homebrew clubs to accept Entries via domestic post/shipping channels and then hand carry those entries across the border to be shipped via domestic US (Private) shipping channels to the sites. This should also mean that more of the Canadian entries would actually make it instead of being turned away at customs. I could well be wrong though.

Brilliant ... perhaps

I'm not sure there's 10 clubs in the country with any amount of organization, let alone at the borders. Pretty hard to do. I'm not even sure about the legalities either. That's the way it goes...brew on.

I didn't mean killed as in terminated, the ALES competition will clearly go on. But it is killed as a NHC first round site. There's no sugar coating of that.

I don't see how you'll ever return to this site, or any other one in Canada as it appears one of the major criteria of removing it was the lack of AHA members in Canada. This move won't help. The rest of these explanations/excuses are window dressing and won't solve that problem.

You basically decided that you are keeping your 2nd round quotas for the US based on concentration of AHA members. And that's fine, it's your organization, but there's no sense pretending what happened was because of Canadians wanting to bypass ALES, or lack of entries. Those aren't well founded arguments.

What are the benefits to foreign members to have an AHA membership (other than zymurgy)? Because it appears that is one of the major problems here. The ALES comp was moving to full capacity, and was well judged and well run, those don't appear to be reasons not to have the site anymore. If foreign members are funneling money to the AHA without the same benefits, it's not much of an incentive....

...but, ultimately, as stated above, you are hurting for BJCP judges. As crazy as this sounds, in the long run, it may have been more beneficial to your members to have more sites in Canada and open to the US entries. I would bet that we have a large pool of qualified judges available to handle it at this end. Because obviously, you are backing yourselves into a corner with the disproportional growth rates of brewers/judges. Killing ALES is just a symptom of a bigger problem that may not go away so easily. My 2c.

I understand that YOU did not make this decision. I just wanted to define the terms 'fair' and 'equal', which you did use.

As far as defining "equal", what dawg said was "provides equal playing field to all outside the country" and that is an absolutely true statement. Brewers in Canada are now exactly equal to brewers in the UK, France, and everywhere else outside of the US. Prior to the change, brewers in Canada had an advantage over their other international entrants.

Yes, and Americans had an even greater advantage over us and the rest of the planet.

Really nice, thorough reply. Thanks Tom. A lot of stuff I wasn't aware of in there, and while I want everyone involved (it would be great if our membership came with one guaranteed NHC entry slot) it seems like the current rules are fair for almost everyone, and provides equal playing field to all outside the country.

If by equal, you meant virtually eliminated, then yes, you have done an excellent job. It's cost prohibitive, a royal pain in the ass, and pretty much a roulette wheel at customs, to bother with 1st round entries out of this country. I understand that you have your reasons, but there's no sense sugar coating the end result.

I'm not sure that you can really lay the blame for international shipping law at the feet of the AHA. and it seems like that is really what it comes down to. If I want to enter a contest in the UK or even Canada I would have to deal with exactly the same thing (I live in the USA).

I'm not blaming the AHA for international shipping laws. I am clarifying the end result of removing the Canadian 1st round site. It's not that big of a deal to me not to be included in the NHC, but puts a lot of people off the AHA to say the least.

Really nice, thorough reply. Thanks Tom. A lot of stuff I wasn't aware of in there, and while I want everyone involved (it would be great if our membership came with one guaranteed NHC entry slot) it seems like the current rules are fair for almost everyone, and provides equal playing field to all outside the country.

If by equal, you meant virtually eliminated, then yes, you have done an excellent job. It's cost prohibitive, a royal pain in the ass, and pretty much a roulette wheel at customs, to bother with 1st round entries out of this country. I understand that you have your reasons, but there's no sense sugar coating the end result.

That's not necessarily true. I've used many packs of frozen hops from last year's hops that were frozen wet in vac bags. They smell exactly like this year's fresh hops that I just picked. If they went cheesy on you, it was a O2 issue, not a moisture issue.